Chapter 26: Bumper to Bumper

Chapter 26: Bumper to Bumper
28 January 2004 So, here we are. Nearly TWO YEARS since the last update. Well, there’s a reason for that.

For the most part, the restoration work is finished. The Beast is pretty close to the best state it can be in. It’s cleanly painted inside and out, fully fitted with stock accessories, and is more mechanically reliable than either of our other two cars. Whatever purpose the work on this vehicle had—purposes, during the long restoration process, completely unknowable, perhaps unattainable—seems to be fulfilled. In other words, whatever this vehicle was made to do, it’s doing right now.

You’d think there’s no more to tell. Think again!

Let’s start by describing what’s new on The Beast, front to back, bumper to bumper.

FOG LAMPS— In Fall of 2002 I scored a nice pair of 5" amber fog lamps from Dave’s Chevy Parts in El Sobrante. A really neat shop, tucked into a weird rural pocket near Richmond, Dave’s mostly services Camaros and Bel-Aires and the like, but still has some swell truck stuff. With the Chevy Parts Warehouse in San Martin kaput for nigh on four years now, it’s the ONLY Old Chevy specialist in the Bay Area.

Checking the stock placement for fog lamps in the recently acquired 1957 Chevrolet Accessories Manual (the earliest available; still works okay for 1956), it was indicated they should be fit in right in front of the parking lamps. As loyal readers of this humble journal (really a very, very occasional blog) know, I’ve tried to follow the stock path right down the line. I’m sorry, but putting the fog lamps right in front of the turn signals makes no friggin’ sense.

I chose instead to mount them in alignment between the inner and outer vertical struts of the grill. It makes a pleasing visual presentation: accessorized, without being too crowded.

I also strayed from GM’s Great Plan for the dash switch. The manual says you’re supposed to mount the toggle switch 2" directly above the main light switch. I had a better idea.

If you’re a California-based classic car aficionado, you’ve no doubt noticed that old car license plates (called Year of Manufacture, or YOM plates) have cute little miniature side plates for the registration and month tags. The purpose is so you don’t mar your nice vintage plates with stickers, especially of you’ve already got a vintage sticker affixed. That’s why the DMV gives you two side plates. Now, I repainted my plate, so I have a place for the year sticker, and I only need one side plate for the month sticker. Serendipitously, at least from a design sense, the side plates have bossed edges, just like the vent knob mounting plates for the 1955-1956 Chevy Truck. Hmmm…

I mounted the switch and a lovely vintage amber dash light I picked up in Turlock a few years back (I just knew they’d come in handy!) into the spare side plate, inverted so it would mount on the bottom of the dash. I mounted the assembly just to the right of the steering column, and wired them to the fogs through the fuse block (vide infra). It may not be stock, but it sure looks it.

And I cannot believe I just did six paragraphs on fog lamps.

ENGINE—Oh boy, you’re going to hear about the engine in detail in "Marooned in Pismo," two chapters ahead in this fine online journal.

FUSE BLOCK—If you’ve got an old truck, even of you’ve re-wired it, you need one of these. It makes adding electrical accessories stupid easy. It also brings peace of mind.

One dark fall night I was driving the Beast back from Santa Cruz to San Francisco. Just outside San Bruno I decided to run the defroster. Well, the goddamn crummy repro fan control up and shorted out on me right then and there. ZAP! Out go the lights! I could smell the wiring from the fan control to the ignition burn up. I managed to get the system restored by flicking the knob back and forth until it broke connection. I ended up replacing several wires behind the dash that melted, as well as the goddamn crummy repro fan control (with, unfortunately, another goddamn crummy repro fan control, but this time I made sure the resistor coils were safely spread out). Now the heater fan, as well as pretty much all the electrical systems that might go crackle, run through the fuse block.

I bought a new repro fuse block from Chevy Duty: I actually located and purchased a NOS fuse block, complete with box and instructions, on eBay as well. Let me know if you want it-- I’ll letcha have it cheap.

INSTRUMENT CLUSTER—I’ve already documented my struggles with the Fuel Gauge. I finally resigned myself to never really knowing how much gas I had at any given time when the speedometer needle started doing interesting stuff, like shooting up and down from zero to 100.

Naturally, I assumed because I was able for fix so much stuff throughout the panel I could probably suss out how to fix a sticky speedo.

For the record: I cannot diagnose, repair, or successfully re-assemble speedometers.

I finally resigned myself to never really knowing how fast I was going at any given time (or how much gas I had to get there) when I drove the Beast to a Good Guys Show in Pleasanton last spring. Some guys who specialize in racing instrumentation had their wares displayed— digital readouts, racing tachs, expensive stuff like that. There, jammed in the middle of them all, was a complete, restored 1955-1959 Chevy truck instrument cluster, complete with chrome bezel and new plastic face. It looked like a Victrola jammed into an iPod display. I bought it on the spot.
When I installed it, I discover the oil pressure gauge on the new one didn’t work. Well, I happened to have TWO spares: my working original and one I got from Dave’s Chevy Parts a few months previous. It all works like a dream now.

I gave my old one to David Miller: it’s good for salvage or an attractive paperweight.

PARKING BRAKE HANDLE—Another fortuitous eBay find. My parking brake was getting dangerously unreliable. I would haul it out; and three times out of four it would hold for a few seconds, then snap back with a loud POP! Bad news in hill-town. The replacement handle holds perfectly. Funny thing is, I’ve looked at both handles side-by-side and they’re identical—no obvious wear on the ratchet teeth or anything.

INTERIOR PAINT—Will be chronicled in detail in "Grayness Within," the next edifying chapter of this fine journal.

SEAT UPHOLSTERY—Man, I wish I had a car upholstery shop. What a license to steal!

I finally had about enough with the seating in The Beast. Over the springs and shredded cotton batting the Old Man stuffed scraps of polyurethane foam, bits of Naugahyde, and old towels, covered with hideous upholstery fabric. When I got it I just put a pair of those acetate woven gray seat covers you get at the auto parts store over the whole mess. It worked, after a fashion, but what was needed was real seat covers, because the springs were starting to poke out.

I picked a likely upholstery shop in San Francisco, one with a couple of nice old cars in the bay. I told the guy I wanted a simple stock job—two tones of gray vinyl, no button tuck, nothing fancy, and I had the Assembly Manual as a reference for what it was supposed to look like. The guy looked me straight in the eye and quoted me $750. I was so shocked I couldn’t even give the standard "I’ll think about it and get back to you" lie—I just got the hell out of there.

Do-It-Yourself Time! I stripped the seats down the springs, carefully measured and made patterns for a two-part seat cover—the tombstone-shaped top and the side panel for the seat pan and back. For the top I used very thick dark gray tweed, and the sides were cut from equally thick lighter gray vinyl. It took a bit of doing to get them sewed up—the sewing machine I used was my mother-in-law’s White. It was made in 1950. Vintage consistency!

The covers look swell, and cost about $35 (not counting about a half-dozen busted leather needles). That’s less that five percent of the professional mark-up. Hah!

BACK-UP LIGHTS— Like turn signals, another accessory considered optional in the 1950s you really can’t safely drive without these days (I’m still down of mandatory seat belts, though). Especially when you have to back a 3800-pound panel with limited rear visibility out of a narrow parking slot. I’m not particularly concerned about the Beast getting hit—I worry about the not-paying-attention guy driving the all-plastic Daiwoo.
Chevy Duty had a nice pair of backup lamp bases and lenses. It took a bit of research to find out exactly which type of lamps were supposed to go into panels and suburbans As it turns out, the backup lamps from 1952-1954 Chevy sedans were used in panels and suburbans from 1952 right to 1959.

Getting the lamps installed was the easy part: The switch was a bit more problematic. The accessory kit included a switch that mounted either on the base of the stick or the column shift. These are probably impossible to find. I improvised a switch out of some angled aluminum stock and a Radio Shack momentary-on microswitch mounted onto a frame secured onto the shifter mount with a big hose clamp. An aluminum arm on the shifter presses on the switch when it’s in reverse. I added a rubber pad onto the button so the arm didn’t mash the hell out of the switch.

BUMPER STICKER— Sure, anyone could affix an "I Like Ike" bumper plaque on the car for a 50’s feel, but who remembers whom he ran against in 1956? Adlai Stevenson, one of the 20th century’s greatest statesmen, that’s who. If I were around in ’56, I certainly would have voted for him. I most certainly would have shown my support by slapping his campaign sticker on my bumper. If bumper stickers had actually been invented then, that is.

[Nostalgic Aside #14: The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk used to have one of those novelty newspaper headline-printing concessions. In the days before inkjet and laser printers, it was considered quite a big deal to get your name set in giant type on the cover of a souvenir newspaper in greasy black ink that took four hours to safely dry. You know, JIMMY DECLARED WORLD’S BEST LOVER or some such. Along with the spin-art booth and the Walking Charley game, it’s one of the things about the old Boardwalk I truly miss. Still, the dime toss and the bazooka are still going strong, and there’s a working Pole Position II sit-down game in the arcade, so never mind.

My good friend Daev (the one I used to douse streetlights with back in the early 80s) used to get custom bumper stickers printed at the novelty-printing place (they did them as a sideline). The declarations he expressed in the medium used to get pretty interesting reactions from people. One of them-- "INTO THE MUD, SCUM QUEEN"-- made the paper one week.]

And that’s the other end of the truck, and the end of this chapter!